The Crash

Our client was a delivery driver heading out on her morning route when an independent owner-operator in a fully loaded semi-truck passed her and moved into her lane before clearing her vehicle. Her car was forced off the road, landing in a ditch far from the highway. The damage to the driver’s side was so severe that she couldn’t open her door. She crawled to the passenger seat and waited for rescue workers to carry her out on a spine board.

The truck driver was cited for unsafe lane deviation. He pleaded no contest. In discovery, he admitted in his own words that he moved into her lane while she was still in it. Liability was never going to be a serious fight.

The Injury — and What the Defense Got Wrong

At the emergency room, imaging confirmed a compression fracture of the T12 vertebra — a severe wedge fracture resulting in permanent height loss in the vertebral body and a lasting change in the curvature of her spine. She was discharged with pain medication and told to follow up.

Her employer couldn’t accommodate her physical restrictions. She stopped working the day of the crash and never returned.

Over the next two years, she tried everything her doctors recommended — physical therapy, trigger point injections, epidural steroid injections — and got limited, short-term results. The fracture wasn’t healing normally. The pain was constant. Eventually, she began to lose hope. She told us she wasn’t sure there was any treatment left to try.

We disagreed.

We Stayed. We Pushed. And We Found What Worked.

We kept encouraging our client to explore every available avenue. We believed a solution existed — it just hadn’t been found yet.

Her pain specialist eventually began a new diagnostic workup targeting the facet joints of her lumbar spine. Nerve block injections produced dramatic short-term relief, confirming the diagnosis. That opened the door to radiofrequency ablation — a procedure using heated probes to disrupt the specific nerves transmitting her pain. For the first time since the crash, she had meaningful, sustained relief.

RFAs are not a permanent cure. They must be repeated. But they were the answer we had been searching for — and finding that answer transformed the case.

The Defense Wanted to Settle Early. We Said No.

After we sent a policy-limits demand, the insurer didn’t respond. We filed suit. Once we did, the defense suddenly wanted to talk. They pushed for quick mediation, arguing that liability wasn’t really in dispute and that compression fractures “just heal.”

We refused.

Our client had finally found a treatment that worked, and she deserved to finish that treatment before we negotiated. We were not going to let the defense settle this case while she was still in the middle of her care — and before we had a complete picture of what her future would cost.

Building the Full Picture

We retained a life care planner who documented our client’s future medical needs — recurring radiofrequency ablations, ongoing pain management, long-term medication, and physical therapy — all tied to the crash. Projected future care costs ran into six figures over her remaining life expectancy.

By the time we sat down to mediate, our client had just completed her most successful RFA to date, reporting her best pain relief in years. She was exercising again. And we had everything we needed: locked liability, years of lost wages, treating physician causation opinions, and a fully documented future damages model. Trial was six weeks away.

The Result: $1,750,000

The case settled in full.

The defense said compression fractures just heal. What they didn’t account for was a client whose injury set off a chain of consequences — chronic pain, altered gait, additional procedures, and years out of work — and a legal team that refused to negotiate before the case was ready.

Patience and persistence built this result. The $1,750,000 settlement reflected the true value of what our client lost — not what the defense hoped to pay before we had fully built the case.

If you or someone you know has been seriously injured in a trucking or automobile accident, contact us to discuss your rights.